Monday 15 October 2012

Weegee


Weegee was born in Złoczów now known as Zolochive, Ukraine. He has worked alongside of other commercial photographers doing different types of jobs. He decided to leave his old job in 1935 and he decided to become a freelance photographer. He worked at night and competed with the police to be first at the scene of a crime. In 1957, He developed diabetes, he then moved in with Wilma Wilcox, who was a social worker whom he had known since the 1940s, she had cared for him and then cared for his work. He travelled widely in Europe until 1968, working alongside the Daily Mirror and on a variety of photography shoots.

Most of his photographs were taken with very basic press photographer equipment and methods of the era, he used a 4x5 Speed Graphic camera present at f/16 at 1/200 of a second, with flashbulbs and a set focus distance of ten feet.  He developed his photographs in a homemade darkroom in the rear of his car. This provided an instant result to his work that highlighted the nature of the tabloid industry and gave the images a “hot off the press” feeling.





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